


Obscure Word Challenges

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [150]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Comfort, Crush, Demons, Dogs, Drabble, Multi, Prompt Fic, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles based off unusual words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Merrill, duende

**Author's Note:**

> Duende - Unusual power to attract or charm.

“Why me?” she asks Audacity at the edge of the Fade, on the shore of sleep and waking. The demon’s eyes glitter like gems, like dew on a spider’s web, like the eyes of the patient spider itself.

“Something about you,” it muses, tilting its head at her. “Something special.” She doesn’t see what it does, of course: a shifting, many faceted world, pits and hillocks, with everything humming and crackling with energy.

And then there’s the tiny elf, unwavering, unbent, her light like a lyrium pillar, nearly close enough to taste.

Whether Audacity will have its chance is uncertain yet.


	2. Hawke/Aveline, sphallolalia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sphallolalia - Flirtatious talk that leads nowhere.

“Hawke, you’re drunk.”

“Drunk on  _you_ ,” she burbles, leaning heavily and affectionately on Aveline’s armoured shoulder. “You’re all spiky, Aveline. When did you get all  _spiky?_ ”

 _Time immemorial,_ Aveline wants to say, but opts for “Since I got the new armour,” instead.

“My Aveline’s not spiky,” Hawke retorts much louder than she strictly has to. “My Aveline’s a sun in the sky, a mabari on the battlefield, and a champion friend.” She hiccups. “And alas, in no way mine. Maker, you’re a cruel bastard, making me like me and Aveline like…Aveline.”

“No more cruel than he has to be,” Aveline says, little lines blossoming at the corners of her mouth and eyes, and knocks on the door to the Amell estate until she can safely pass Hawke into Bodahn’s trusty care.

Neither one mentions that night ever after, not even under threat of alcohol poisoning.


	3. f!Brosca, Sten, mamihlapinatapei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.

Expectation. The basra world is full of it. People expect success and prosperity and things “done right”, for whatever definition of that word, without lifting a finger toward that goal. Sow a handful of air, and reap nothing.

There’s a hint of it in the Warden’s eyes, even now, as his  _kadan_  taps the back of his arm. His watch is over, and hers now begins. The night gives her face softness, something of a longing. The way she looks at him, warm yet slightly cagey, asks for something that he does not know how to give. (A different life, a different place, and he might ask the same from her; in this, he cannot lie.)

"Thank you, Warden," he says quietly, dismissed from his post.

"Sleep well,  _kadan_ ,” she replies, and it is said with such warmth he is unsure of what to expect next.


	4. Qunari OC/Qunari OC, agelast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agelast - a person who never laughs

Despite the senaanra’s best efforts, Thelaan’s eye remains ruined, the silver moon of an iris gone grey and clouded. A massive keloid claims that half of his face, long shining fingers pressed against his skin. His horn has split so badly he must band it for almost all his days.

Tamassran hates Tevinter with singular passion. They took his eye, they took his purpose and—worst of all—they took his smile, that easy and unsinkable joy that had once captured a priestess-in-training’s heart.

He is solemn and quiet and his laugh is a forced, drowned-out wheeze. Something must be done.

* * *

They have tasked him to watch over the hounds. It is a simple enough job for a one-eyed cripple. He will serve.

When he enters the kennel it erupts in sound. He flinches— _kost_ , even now he flinches—but he puts down their meal and watches the qenan eat. They devour their breakfast vigorously, strong jaws champing, tails wagging like banners of war, and he watches, quiet, lost in his own dark thoughts.

Something nudges him on his blind side and he jerks backwards in alarm, one foot catching the feed bucket. It rolls away with a clatter and clang, and he ends up on his back in the pen. That seems to be a signal, and qenan pups barrel toward him, little velvet paws squishing him heavily in sensitive spots, little tongues laving his face and arms as he squirms to get away. Through the gaps in his fingers he sees one half-grown dog, hanging back, tongue lolling out ridiculously as it shakes mud from its paws.  _The little vashedan is laughing at him._  It’s almost black from snout to tail, save for a pale crescent marking on its shoulder. The hound closes its mouth, regarding him curiously with large, intelligent eyes.  _Well? Aren’t you going to **do**_ _anything?_

"ENOUGH!" he growls, rising upward abruptly and shaking off several pups as he does so. One catches its little peg teeth in his arm, leaving several not-at-all-peg-shaped marks in the flesh. "I’m not for eating, confound it, get back to your food dishes!" One more is creeping round his blind side—he turns, fixing one angry eye on it. The pup withers. "No. You’ve a long way to go if you think that’s going to work twice.  _Git._ " It gits, scurrying away.

The original culprit pads up to him then, ears twitching, looking innocent as a newborn babe. It woofs once. The man snorts.

"Don’t you start with me, _kara_ _bas_ ,” he growls. One side of his face is twitching. He doesn’t know what it’s trying to do. “Got anything to say for yourself?”

It paws his knee, and when he reaches for it, slips its snout into his long, rough hands and chews idly on his fingers.  _Not bad_ , she seems to say.  _Not good either. But you’ll learn._

All the hounds, now satiated, bound over to inspect this new presence, and he is soon swamped by dogs black and white and grey and a sea of tails, wagging, wagging like banners of war and festival flags. The young ones knock the breath from his lungs  _again_ and chew on his hair and give his face several washings, and he is surrounded by warm skin and dog breath. Much to his surprise he finds himself cursing them all loudly and affectionately in between laughter, loud and raucous enough that he barely remembers ever sounding like that.

* * *

It’s about a year on when a converts’ escort, newly-made, takes a detour past the dog kennels of Seheron. It doesn’t take long to find the Qenvaarad she’s looking for. His is the kennel where the dogs are sleek and happy and  _chatty_ off the leash, and she can hear his voice above the barks and howls, commanding them this way and that.

She stops and leans on the fence, waiting for him to notice her presence. The new pups do it first, and bumble madly to her feet. He turns, forearms raked with thin white scars and upper arms with the old marks of blades. His hair is tied back, away from curious slobbery mouths. Qenvaarad fixes his whole eye on her and grins, all teeth and light. The black bitch at his side does the same, tail wagging a more sedate welcome.

"Sorry about the young upstarts, Arelan!" he says, wiping muck off his hands as he comes to greet her. "They’re worse than the imekari."

"At least these won’t headbutt me in the knees."

“ _Yet!_ " He raises one finger solemnly. "Do not underestimate the hound. He never underestimates you."

"I’ll keep that in mind, kadan." She raises her gaze to his face, scars and all, leans against the fence. "And how are you doing, Qenvaarad?"

"Well! Very well," he says, adding in a softer tone, "Even better now that you’re here, actually."

"Flatterer," she spits back at him, eyes crinkling.

"When am I not?" he counters, laughing with a great barking sound as big as the joy of his heart. If there is a little relief and a lot of pride in Arelan’s smile, he makes no mention of it.


	5. Ariqun, tarantism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarantism - The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing.

"The city seems very cheerful today, Your M…se—…um…my lady."

"Your observation is correct. You have come during a festival, ambassador."

"What does it celebrate?"

"A man has died." This simple and clear reason makes the human’s face twist like crepe in the wind.

"A…an enemy? A tyrant?"

"No. A great man, who served his people to all his ability. He has been dubbed Qunoran Vehl—what I think means ‘ _hero_ ' to your people, though some think it is more equivalent to  _'martyr'_.”

"You’re…celebrating his death."

"Not his passing, but the breadth of his service." The Ariqun’s glass-blue eyes cloud for a moment, but the moment surely passes and she gives their guest a cheerful smile. Cheerful for a Qunari, at any rate. "Besides, it is much easier to forget one’s grief if one can be induced to dance. Come, we will show you how. And you will see again, tonight."


	6. Sten/(f)Brosca, basorexia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basorexia - An overwhelming desire to kiss.

The temptation is great; he must admit this much. The Warden is one small thing against the Blight, aided as she is by the rest of their ragtag party (who wouldn’t last a day in the Beresaad, yet have somehow killed werewolves, ogres and broodmothers with internal organs to spare). The fatigue in those eyes and the shadow in her gaze is palpable, but it is not in him to give her the comfort she needs, in a way she would find familiar.

So he looks, instead.

When her gaze turns across the fire, her eyes catch the light and a faint smile crosses her lips, and Sten wonders if she shares the thoughts that eddy through his brain.


	7. Hawke/Fenris, autolatry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autolatry - The worship of one’s self.

Every morning Markisa Hawke wakes up, pinches her nose and says:  _I am the best at what I do. My sword is sharp. My arms are strong. And I’m the cutest of my mother’s children._ And then it’s back to the grind of fencing things for the Coterie, or planning a Deep Roads expedition, or fishing her erstwhile companions out of trouble, or pestering the Arishok just for the hell of it.

At some point she adds:  _also one day I am going to bang Fenris like a war drum._

At some point she drops it.

But one day, many days after that, she wakes up in bed— _their_  bed, and she pinches her nose and says the words and they mean a little less. Fenris stirs, cracks one eye open. In that flash of green she sees what she has known for a while: that she doesn’t have to be her best for him. Both their blades are worthy. Their kindness counts for as much as their strength. And who cares about being cute when the hottest tumbling elf in the world is at your side?


End file.
